As You Can See, You're Disarmed
A/n: Another Hogwarts AU one-shot! Yay! This time, with Rivetra in a world where all the SNK adults are Hogwarts students.
Again, wanna know my house and blood status headcanons? I have a tumblr with an open inbox, just add a hyphen between my author name here.
"10 3/4 inches of ash wood with a dragon heart string," Erwin observed, both his hands holding Levi's wand with care as he admired the craftsmanship. "Interesting, very interesting. Work like this never fails to impress me."
Levi nodded his head as he remained seated on a stool, looking up at his fellow Slytherin as the Smith looked fascinated, as if he had never seen a good quality wand before. "I'm aware of that, Erwin. Now, may I have it back?"
"My bad," Erwin apologized professionally, handing the wand back down to its owner. "It's a very nice wand, you know."
"I'm aware," Levi repeated, taking his wand back and standing up. Immediately, his eyes looked over to the other end of the great hall, where a group of Hufflepuffs stood, all apparently socializing with each other, as opposed to getting their challenger prepared for the upcoming duel like they should be. "Who do you think they'll choose today?"
Erwin shrugged his shoulders, "It beats me. Maybe Mike'll try again, or perhaps Nanaba? It's hard to tell at this point."
"I'd like some sort of guarantee of which brat is duelling," Levi informed, stretching out his wrists properly to best perform the required wand movements. "A freak who likes to sniff people with out permission or a person who was nicknamed Banana until her 4th year when she learned the unforgivable curses don't seem like much."
"To you, at least," Erwin reminded. "And we can't all be as intimidating as you, Levi." Then again, Erwin had hit a growth spurt in his 3rd year, and Levi was still waiting for his to hit. The Smith had no need to seem intimidating when his height did it all for him.
"But," Erwin continued, patting Levi on the shoulder, his voice suddenly turning playful. "A little owl told me that the Hufflepuffs are going to send out their newest duelling club addition, who also happens to be that cute seeker you can never seem to keep your eyes off of during games."
Levi gave Erwin a slightly angrier look than he usually projected, laced with a small element of frustration and embarrassment as he glared up at him, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
A chuckle escaped Erwin's throat, "It's fine, Levi. Besides, you won that game for us anyway."
"Yeah," was all Levi replied in a dry tone before Ian Dietrich stood up on the duelling stage and called out for everyone's attention.
"Everyone, gather 'round!" the tall lanky Slytherin called. "Today, Slytherin shall be duelling against Hufflepuff, so please quiet down as they send their first duellists up!"
"That's me," Levi called, walking up to Slytherin's end of the stage and climbing up the stairs. No noticeable crowd reaction was made when Levi stood, but that only meant that there was way more legroom for Levi to surprise them with his skills.
On the other side, Levi could see the Hufflepuffs huddling together, discussing their plan of action. Mike was the most noticeable, but from what was seen, it was apparent that Mike was not going to be going up. Same went for Nanaba, who seemed to be backing off.
Finally, Erwin was proven right when the badgers broke their huddle and ushered their duellist on the stage.
Petra Ral stepped on with a neutral expression, perhaps appearing so to hide her fear. Or confidence.
Levi recognized her, obviously. Her small form made her a very formidable seeker, natural agility and swiftness being showcased in the games he had seen her play in. He had caught the snitch before her in the last Slytherin VS. Hufflepuff game, but Levi did recall seeing her outfly Ravenclaw's Rico Brzenska by miles during the first game of the winter season.
Admittedly, he thought she was quite pretty, which was thus the reason he Levi felt a small discomforting feeling in his stomach when he first saw her lining up with the Hufflepuff quidditch team before a game several months ago. It was an odd feeling, and Levi could not pinpoint exactly what it was. That day, the rain was not the only thing distracting Levi's vision.
Levi was snapped out of his thoughts and memories once Ian started speaking once more.
"All right then. Duellists! Wands at the ready!" Ian called, stepping off the stage and onto the floor, right smack dab in the middle. "A bit of a warning though, we do not want another shut-down threat, so please cast charms to disarm and disarm only!"
Levi scoffed, "Tch, guess that means I'm going easy on you then."
Petra's smile was minute, "If you insist."
"On my count," Ian announced. "Wands up!"
Levi raised his wand, Petra mirroring his motions with her own.
"1…"
His mind was racing. Ian instructed that they disarm only, which Levi understood considering the amount of snakes and spiders Hanji released into the great hall last week still have not all been found, but Levi wasn't one for simply disarming. And it kind of sucked that Hanji ended up getting live animals banned from duelling competitions, now he couldn't cause people to start vomiting up slugs with a spell he had worked hard on to perfect.
He couldn't conjure something too dangerous. Maybe growing Petra's front teeth out at an alarming rate could distract her for long enough for him to think of something else.
"2…"
Perhaps he could use that tickling charm Erwin fancied upon duels, or strip down his spell arsenal and go for the simple act of stunning. That seemed to be a good idea, seeing that the last time Levi saw the stunning spell, Anka Rheinberger launched Gunther Schultz all the way across a classroom.
"1!"
Stunning was good, Levi agreed on it mentally. Lifting his wand up, he took in a breath to properly say the spell without stuttering, "Stu-"
"Expelliarmus!" Petra shouted from her end of the stage. Before Levi knew it, a very quick beam of white whispy energy shot from the end of her wavy stick of maple and swiftly travelled across the room faster than a rogue bludger.
Before Levi could finish uttering his spell, he suddenly felt the new sensation of a fist punching his chest and him being pushed right across the stage, arms flailing up like an idiot as his back landed on the wooden surface with a powerful thud, sliding across as the momentum the powerful disarming charm created gradually wore off. At least he didn't slide off the stage and land on the stone floor. No, that would have hurt.
It all happened so quickly that when the momentum finally stopped, Levi's eyes were stuck wide open in surprise, staring up at the hall ceiling, with his wand suddenly no longer in his grip. That definitely proved the charm's title.
On one side of the room, every Slytherin watching approached Levi's end of the stage, looking at him with the same surprised expression he had on.
All except Erwin, who seemed to have gone and joined the Ravenclaws watching on, standing beside Hanji as the two stifled their laughter.
And on the other end, Petra seemed to be receiving an admittedly well deserved applause among her fellow Hufflepuffs, Mike happily patting her on the shoulder, which he did not even need to stand on the stage to be in range to do, as Petra high five'd Eld and Nanaba.
Levi propped himself up on his elbows as he ignored the new stinging pain forming in the back of his head. Turning his neck, Levi looked over to the still giggling Erwin and Hanji before giving them a glare that could cut through glass. "The fuck are you two laughing about?"
Hanji managed to stop their giggles to speak first, "Well, Levi, you said you'd go easy on her, right? Maybe next time, you should mutually agree on the whole going easy on each other thing."
Levi grumbled as he sat up properly, "Yeah, maybe."
Erwin finally came down from his chuckling high and stepped towards his friend on the stage. "That was one hell of a disarming charm though. As you can see, you're disarmed."
Pulling himself up, Levi shook the dust off his pants and stood up straight, "Yeah, I can tell. Now, where the fuck is my wand?"
When the 6:30 hour hit, the dueling club finally came to an end. After Eld Jinn tickled Nile Dawk into submission, Erwin himself went head to head with his incendio against Mike's aguamati charm, and Auruo Bossard got stunned so badly by Nanaba that he crashed into poor Rico Brzenska, who came into the hall just to observe the duels, everyone in the great hall was thankful that the meeting was finally over, meaning that everyone could go back into their common rooms to relax for the rest of the evening without risk of injury.
Levi could still feel ringing inside his head from Petra's powerful disarming charm, indicated when he kept his hand on his cranium, trying to massage it out.
"Hey!"
Levi would have recognized the voice if it were in fact exclaiming spells directed to him. But since it was simply greeting him, he turned around to see who it was.
Petra seemed understandably positive for someone who had just won her first duel. Or just for a Hufflepuff in general.
"Levi, right?" she asked, snapping her fingers to better recall her name.
"That's me," Levi confirmed dryly. "What do you need?"
"My name's Petra Ral, if you didn't know," she started, not wanting to confuse him too much with her initial friendly forwardness. "And I just came by to see if you're all right from out duel. You took a pretty nasty spill."
Levi scoffed, "Yeah, don't remind me." This only made his head ring more, but at least it was nothing compared to the boils Hanji accidentally caused him to grow during a potions class in their 2nd year. "I've flown broomsticks into walls, Ral. I'll be okay."
Petra nodded in comprehension, "If you insist. I'm sorry for casting a spell like that though. Ian said to disarm, and I kind of launched you across the entire stage... my bad."
Levi shrugged his shoulders as they walked through the hallways, moving to the grand staircase, "It was a disarming charm, and it did it's intended purpose." Maybe it's intended purpose had been done a little too well, seeing as the wand flew up and hit poor Moblit Berner in the eye when it landed.
"Guess I don't know my own strength then," Petra admitted somewhat timidly, that timidness only fading off as she quickly regained her usual positive demeanor. "Hope you feel better though."
"I will," Levi guaranteed.
"And uh... here," Petra stated, following him down a staircase and towards the dungeon.
She took his wrist in her hand and put her closed fist on Levi's open palm. When she took it off, Levi found a small sweet wrapped in wax paper sitting right smack dab in the middle of his palm.
He raised an eyebrow initially, considering the fact that he had never seen a sweet like this before.
It wasn't a drooble, and looked nothing close to an every flavour bean. And he knew for sure that chocolate frogs were never this immobile.
"What is this?" Levi questioned, picking the sweet up by the wrapping and observing the little blue wad of sugar. Perhaps it was a muggle sweet.
"It's saltwater taffy," Petra explained. "When I was a kid, if I ever scraped my knee or fell on the floor, my dad would give me one of these to make me feel better."
"Does it have healing properties?" Levi asked.
Petra shook her head, "I wish, that'd be convenient. But try it, it's delicious."
"Erm, sure," Levi agreed. "Thank you."
"No problem," Petra grinned before realizing where they were. If she did not turn a corner, she wouldn't be able to get to the Hufflepuff common room. "I gotta go now, bye, Levi!"
And with that said, Petra Ral turned around and dashed away, leaving behind an intrigued Levi and a small scrap of saltwater taffy that he would consume later before Erwin or Auruo complied to their sweet tooths and swiped it from him.
Y'know, Erwin shouldn't really be the one speaking of being disarmed... *dodges rotten fruit and eggs being thrown*
Disclaimer: I do not own a thing.